ApplySci - Deep Tech Health + Neurotech
RPI‘s Eric Ledet is developing tiny sensors to detect infections in implanted orthopedic prostheses early.
Surgical site infections are a common complication and can result in additional surgery, implant removal, delayed wound healing, increased antibiotics, and death.
The simple, cheap sensor will be incorporated into the implant during surgery, enabling continuous, non-invasive infection monitoring.
MIT researchers are developing tiny devices made from polymer wrapped carbon nanotubes that detect insulin, nitric oxide and fibrinogen — simplifying and automating diagnostic tests.
Past efforts to develop implantable sensors have failed, due to the body’s inclination to protect itself and recycle biological material. Devices can become wrapped in scar tissue, or their components can be broken down. The team believes that the nanotube sensors can be effective for the long term.
MIT’s Michael Strano builds sensors by coating carbon nanotubes with various polymers of different configurations. They are screened against libraries of molecules that the researchers want to detect. The method works because of the nanotubes’ natural ability to fluoresce: when light hits a sensor, the nanotube dims or brightens depending on whether it is bound to a molecule of interest.
PoloTech, Ralph Lauren and OMsignal‘s smart shirts, will be available for sale this week. Like the partnership between Intel and Opening Ceremony, this represents the fashion mainstreaming of wearable technology.
The shirt has embedded silver fibers to track heart rate, heart variability, breathing depth and recovery, intensity of movement, energy output, stress levels, steps taken, and calories burned. One must also wear a “black box” device to receive the sensor data and to capture activity information.
The data is then transmitted to an iOS app, which offers cardio, agility and strength workouts, live fitness monitoring, and exertion and effort ratings. The sensor data adapts the app’s workouts to the wearer’s performance in real time.
The NSF‘s ASSIST center, based at NC State, is using nanotechnology to build clinically accurate, self-powered health monitoring technologies.
The team, led by Veena Misra, is developing tiny devices harvesting energy from body heat (which creates thermal energy) and body motion (which creates mechanical energy). They can be used on various areas of the body.
Examples include:
The optimal sensor position is a person’s pulse points, where blood vessels are close to the skin’s surface. Textiles are ideal for measurements, because they conform to the body and provide the thermal insulation to maintain a temperature difference. The researchers are trying to interconnect electronics from multiple garment locations so that they can communicate with each other.
ApplySci believes that a continuous power source is key to the effectiveness of wearable health sensors. ASSIST, IMEC/Holst, the University of Virginia, and others, seem to be providing the basis for this.
An IMEC led consortium is developing CARDIS, a mobile, low-cost, non-invasive, cardiovascular disease screening device, with the goal of mass screening. Current detection methods, including chest X-ray, ECG, Holter monitoring and cardiac MRI, often detect CVD at a later stage due to cost or complexity of use.
CARDIS is based on Doppler vibrometry (LDV) – a non-contact technique that directs a laser at a moving surface, and uses the Doppler shift of reflected light to infer vibration amplitude and frequency.
In this screening method, LDV detects vibrations of locations on the skin close to arteries or on the chest. Several CVD screening parameters, including arterial stiffness, are obtained. (A stiffer artery leads to a higher pulse wave velocity, typically measured by the time it takes a pulse wave to travel between two locations on an artery. ) LDV can operate without physical contact and with higher accuracy, and can also sense stenosis induced vibrations and cardiac contraction abnormalities.
MIT researchers have developed a digital assessment tool based on the Anoto Live Pen that they believe will improve the accuracy of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis. A paper demonstrates a machine learning based predictive model that might detect neurodegenerative diseases earlier than current methods.
According to lead author William Souillard-Mandar, the technology “allows us to extract thousands of features from the drawing process that give hints about the subject’s cognitive state, and our algorithms help determine which ones can make the most accurate prediction.”
Ohio State researchers have found that epileptic patients’ brains process music differently, and hypothesize that music therapy could be used to reduce temporal lobe seizure frequency.
The brainwaves of 21 epileptic and healthy patients were examined as they listened to music, interspersed with moments of silence. The order of the pieces was randomized, and 10 minutes of silence preceded and followed each composition.
Subject brainwave activity increased as they listened to music. Epileptic patient brainwaves were even more synchronized with the music.
Christine Charyton presented the research at a recent APA conference, and summarized: “We found significantly higher levels of synchronization and spectral EEG activation when listening to music in the frontal cortex and temporal cortex, especially in persons with epilepsy. We speculate that music may be useful to enhance electrical activity specific to the frontal and temporal cortices,”
Physmodo is disrupting physical therapy, using Microsoft Kinect to assess range of motion.
The ADEPT Clinic app senses changes in movement in multiple joints simultaneouly. A manual goniometer can only measure individual joints, and its accuracy depend on the measurer.
The developers believe that Physmodo better equips therapists to track recovery, and motivates patients by allowing them to visually gauge their own progress.
Google Life Sciences ha partnered with DexCom to develop cheap, miniaturized, disposable, bandaid-like continuous glucose sensors.
The devices will incorporate Google’s miniaturized electronics platform with DexCom’s sensors. The goal is to shrink DexCom’s current monitor, giving patients a less obtrusive way to monitor their condition in real time.
Alphabet has announced that Google Life Sciences, Google X and Google Ventures will all increase their healthcare related initiatives.
Spinal injury patients, and those with lost limbs, sometimes have neural prosthetic devices implanted in an attempt to regain independence. They are used for deep brain stimulation and brain controlled external prosthetics. However, neural prosthetics are often rejected by the immune system, and can fail because of a mismatch between soft brain tissue and rigid devices.
University of Pennsylvania‘s Mark Allen and colleagues have created an implantable neural prosthetic device that is biocompatible and replaces silicon and noble metal. The goal is to avoid immune-system rejection, failures due to tissue strain, neurodegeneration, and decreased fidelity of recorded neural signals.
Shlomo Wagner at the University of Haifa has published a paper linking emotions to the processes of learning and memory. For the first time, electrical activity that takes place in the brain during the formation of social memory was identified.
Wagner believes that “different emotions cause the brain to work differently and on distinct frequencies.” He found a connection between the feeling of excitement, rhythmical activity in specific brain areas, and the cognitive process of memory formation.
While only studied in animals, if human trial results are consistent, this could impact the treatment of age-related memory and ADHD learning issues.
Wize is a mirror that its developers claim can monitor health with breath monitors, 3D scanners, video cameras, and imaging systems. It assesses cardio-metabolic risk through changes in face shape and circulation, signs of anxiety, and breath tests for heart attack-inducing chemicals. After a user looks into the mirror for one minute, a health score is produced, and tips for improving health are sent.